The technological advances that have brought enormous benefits to humankind also make us more vulnerable than ever before to unwanted snooping. As technology provides new ways to gather information and databases proliferate, the need for privacy protections becomes more urgent.

Though generations of civil rights activism have led to important gains in legal, political, social, employment, educational and other spheres, the forced removal of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of those of African descent marked the beginnings of a system of racial injustice from which